Does life have a purpose? - street photography

I have a thorn in my heart, it’s called life. I have a nail in my soul, a question that haunts me: does life have a purpose?

“Father I want more life” said Roy Betty in the wonderful Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott. More life? Is life so beautiful?

I’ve been pondering this for years, especially since becoming a doctor. But ultimately, even in my street photography, I seek answer to my questions about life. By capturing the chaos of life, with its beautiful and ugly moments, its surreal and ordinary instances; what’s the meaning of it all? Is there a meaning? Street photography has brought me closer to studying the mystery of life more than anything else.

Before starting to read the article I’d love for you to listen at this soundtrack in the background

street photography Rome

Photographing on the street, living my life, and working as a doctor, I’ve come to a stupid but honest conclusion: I haven’t found a complete sense. I’ve only found chaos, a mass of more or less random events that affect our lifespan at different moments. In this sense, street photography becomes a sort of metaphor for life. We can’t control everything: the scenes and subjects are independent of our will. We can only decide how and when to press the shutter button based on our sensitivity, photographic technique, and, why not, luck which is an essential element that governs our lives, as the great director Woody Allen taught us with his beautiful Match point (i’ve talked about this concept here).

street photography Rome

In this post, I’ve compiled a very small series of photos that more or less evoke what I want to convey. These photos were taken in Rome, mostly between 2021 and 2022. They capture different moments that might seem insignificant to most, but are intrinsically meaningful to those who lived these same moments and to me, who observed and photographed them. Street photographer is an external eye on the everyday, on the life that unfolds around us each day, between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

street photography Rome

I’d like to explain the caos and mystery of life through my street photography. I need this to solve the great mystery of life, to myself at first.

Maybe an humor shot about simple things in life, as the following one posted below.

street photography Rome

Maybe a simple glance.

street photography Rome

Maybe a surreal scene with a giant peluche looking at you.

street photography Rome

Maybe a simple juxtaposition with trash and mannequins.

street photography Rome

A beautiful contrast of life.

street photography Rome

A “svapo-man”.

street photography Rome

Or maybe something else, just life moments without a particular meaning. Maybe just life as it is.

street photography Rome

In such way I think, as Anthony Burgess said, that one’s job is to be curious, and art must resolve the “x”, the mystery of life. We need art to solve the enigma of our existence, to appreciate everyday common things. Definitely I’m going here with my street photography. I try to find order in chaos, i try to better understand life. That’s all.